Table of Contents

Criminal Justice Response to Victim Harm in the United States, 1981 (ICPSR 8249)

Principal Investigator(s):Hernon, Jolene C.; Forst, Brian

Summary:

This data collection examines the ways in which victim harm
affects decisions regarding arrest, prosecution, and sentencing, and
the impact of these decisions on the victim's perception of the
criminal justice system. Five types of offenses were studied: homicide,
sexual assault, burglary, robbery, and aggravated assault. The victim
file contains information on personal characteristics, results of
victimization, involvement in case processing, use of victim assistance
service, satisfaction with case outcomes, and opinions abo... (more info)

This data collection examines the ways in which victim harm
affects decisions regarding arrest, prosecution, and sentencing, and
the impact of these decisions on the victim's perception of the
criminal justice system. Five types of offenses were studied: homicide,
sexual assault, burglary, robbery, and aggravated assault. The victim
file contains information on personal characteristics, results of
victimization, involvement in case processing, use of victim assistance
service, satisfaction with case outcomes, and opinions about the court
system. The police file and the prosecutor file variables cover
personal background, screening decisions on scenario cases,
communication with victims, and opinions about the role of victims in
the criminal justice system. The prosecutor file also includes
sentencing recommendations on the scenarios. Data in the judge file
cover personal background, sentencing recommendations on the scenario
cases, communications with victims, sources of information regarding
victim harm, and opinions about the role of victims in the criminal
justice system.

Access Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Study Description

Citation

Hernon, Jolene C., and Brian Forst. CRIMINAL JUSTICE RESPONSE TO VICTIM HARM IN THE UNITED STATES, 1981. ICPSR ed. Conducted by Jolene C. Hernon and Brian Forst, Institute for Law and Social Research (INSLAW). Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor], 1994. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08249.v1

Methodology

Sample:
Eight sites were selected to represent regional variation
in population size and types of victim services offered. The victim
sample was a systematic sample selected from 1981 prosecutor files.
Every tenth case up to 150 cases was taken from each site. Responses
from criminal justice officials were obtained through convenience
samples of police officers, prosecutors, and judges, all of whom were
experienced with the five target offenses.

Data Source:

personal interviews, telephone interviews, and mailed
questionnaires

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1989-09-26

Version History:

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 5 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 5 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

Download Statistics

Located within ICPSR, NACJD is sponsored by the
Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute of Justice, and the Office
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

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